This invention relates to musical instruments. More particularly, this invention relates to an improved piccolo and piccolo-type instruments having an improved head joint, bore, keys and levers capable of attaining better intonation and a fuller richer sound.
Though piccolos and flutes are commonly considered "cylindrical" bore instruments, they both have central bores that in fact vary slightly in diameter, i.e. the bores are tapered. It was realized by early flute makers that the optimum intonation of the upper octaves could be achieved by the introduction of a headjoint with a tapered bore, while the main body and footjoint of a flute remained strictly cylindrical. The internal diameters of the flute and piccolo have remained at 19.0 mm and 11.0 mm respectively, have not changed in over a hundred years, and are generally accepted to be unchangeable standards.
There are currently two types of piccolo bores available, both with a maximum diameter of 11.0 mm, which are those with a cylindrical body and conical headjoint, as with the flute, and those with a conical body and cylindrical headjoint. The latter is by far the most popular among professional musicians, the tapered head of the former being too small a diameter to produce a quality sound in the middle and low registers. While the conical bore piccolo's headjoint is large enough to produce the desired tone, the conical-bore piccolo suffers from poor tone hole ventilation (due to the small 11.0 mm diameter), which produces a "small" sound that is relatively inflexible with regard to tone color and dynamics as compared with the flute. In addition, the preferred taper for the main body limits its length, which prevents the extension of the piccolo's range from the current "low-D" down to "low-C" and "-B", as is seen on the larger flute. This limits the performance repertoire available to the piccolo player, as the player would not be able to play any note below the note "low-D" which may be written for the flute. Also, the extra body length afforded by these low notes on the flute assists in the acoustics of the extreme upper register. This extra length, and the accompanying advantages, is not, as mentioned above, available on the conical-bore piccolo today. Metal cylindrical-bore piccolos indeed have a headjoint long enough for the proper taper, but the taper starts from 11.0 mm, the result of which is a minimum diameter which is too small to produce the desired tone.
There exist, particularly in piccolos made of metal, previous cylindrical-bore designs which attempt to include a footjoint section, extending the lower range as described above. However, these designs have retained the maximum bore size of 11.0 mm, and as a consequence still produce a less than optimum tone. The reason for not exceeding the traditional 11.0 mm diameter bore is that the necessarily larger toneholes accompanying an enlarged bore would be covered in turn by larger keys which would crowd in upon each other.
The traditional tenon design of the wooden piccolo prevents the realization of a properly tapered headjoint. The tenon is that portion of the piccolo that joins the headjoint to the body. Since the two parts of the tenon must be cylindrical in order to fit properly, the "female" headjoint tenon takes up length which could otherwise be tapered to achieve the proper intonation. In other words, the traditional tenon design makes it impractical to have a tapered headjoint, the headjoint being too short. Another disadvantage to the traditional wooden piccolo tenon design is that most wooden piccolo tenons have a cork band on the "male" body section of the piccolo at the interfacing junction between the headjoint and the body sections of the piccolo. This cork band provides an airtight seal between the headjoint and the body receiving the headjoint. Cork, being a natural organic material tends to dry out over time. The drying cork band shrinks, cracks and thus ceases to provide an airtight seal thereby necessitating the regular replacement of the cork band. A previous metal-to-metal tenon design for the wooden piccolo exists; however, due to the difference between the outside and the inside diameters of the wooden piccolo, there is often a gap of nearly 1/4" which becomes visible as the player tunes the instrument by partially pulling out the headjoint to increase the effective tube length. This is considered by many players to be aesthetically unappealing. Appearance is especially important in the field of hand-crafted musical instruments, where the instruments are valued for the way they look as well as the sound they produce. In addition, the resulting connected joint creates a weak point at which severe damage to the instrument could occur if the instrument is dropped or struck.
The thumb mechanism of a traditional piccolo leaves much to be desired. On the traditional piccolo, the B-flat lever closes the B tone hole by activating the key directly covering the B tone hole via the traditional piccolo thumb mechanism, rotating on an axis parallel to the length of the instrument. Since the B-flat key is also on a parallel axis, the result is a lever mechanism which is uncomfortable, being against the natural tendency of the thumb motion. In addition, the space limitations of the traditional piccolo and the parallel axle require that the thumb key assembly and toneholes be placed low on the body radius, below the so-called "water line", where the condensation which occurs naturally when playing the piccolo collects and effectively blocks the toneholes.
A popular option for many flute players today is the C# trill mechanism. The C# mechanism, by its placement next to the thumb key, facilitates not only the note "C#", but many other notes as well, and is considered to be a major improvement on the traditional flute. The addition of a C# trill key on the piccolo has heretofore been impossible due to the conventional thumb key design of previous piccolos, which do not allow space for another tonehole between the C and trill toneholes.
Due to the short length of the piccolo tube, as well as the number of keys limited by the piccolo's small size, there are several notes in the extreme high range of the piccolo which, although theoretically exist, cannot be sounded. For example, in order to obtain the optimum tone for the note "high F#", it is desirable to close the B-flat tonehole independently of the neighboring B tonehole. However, on the traditional piccolo, this cannot be done due to the configuration of the keys. The mechanism required to separate the action of the two keys covering these toneholes and achieve this optimum high F# is not found on previous piccolo designs due to space limitations, and indeed is so complicated that it rarely appears even on flutes.
A common problem note for the piccolo player is "high G#". In order to obtain the best ventilation for this note, it is desirable to partially close the C tonehole. A previous mechanism to accomplish this exists, but since it relies on the traditional piccolo thumb key design, it suffers from the same problems inherent in that configuration. In addition, the G# cup is located too far away from the thumb key for efficient lever action.